


Wishing Makes It So

by hafren



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-21
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If I were going there, I wouldn't start from here</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wishing Makes It So

**Author's Note:**

> How do you give Gauda Prime a happy ending? It all depends where you start...

You say stay still, stay still, but he won't; he just keeps walking towards you, and the gun keeps firing, all on its own, or maybe your hand does something to it, and he walks on towards you, until he's close enough to touch, and he says your name....

And he begins to fall, quite slowly; his hands slide down the front of you and you let them; you can't move, not for your life, because you know. As soon as he said your name, you knew. He said it in that affectionate, gently exasperated voice he sometimes used when you were being particularly awkward, and you knew he was who he'd always been. Nothing had changed. Except you'd shot him.

He lies at your feet, eyes wide and empty, and there's white noise in your head. On the edge of your vision people are falling slowly, like snow, but your eyes never leave him and your mind has no room for anything except this vast, consuming wish that swells and aches inside it. "Wishing won't make it so". Who used to say that? Your grandmother, maybe. It rings like a great bell of grief, a moan dragged out of someone who's forgotten how to cry.

But she was wrong, your grandmother. You know, because as you stare at him you can see the blood vanishing - no, not vanishing, flowing back, into the body. And you can hardly bear to look at the wounds, but you force yourself, because they're closing up, and the great rips in his clothes sew themselves neatly together, and the light comes back into his eyes.

His hands are moving up your body, the same way they slid down, and this time your own obey you and you help him rise. He smiles, and says, "Let's go and find _Scorpio_".

And you don't ask how he knows about _Scorpio_, nor what he proposes to do with a pile of rubble; you just follow him. It never occurs to you to wonder if the others are with you, or whether anyone's still shooting. He's back now; he will worry about all of that. You couldn't have guessed, until this moment, how much you had longed for the freedom to follow.

And now the blackened, twisted wreckage of _Scorpio_ fits itself together, like a child's toy; the acrid reek of burning is gone. So is the pain on the face of the young pilot beside you - you can see him now - and his body is healed. The man you are following can do all that, or he made the wish in you that has the power to. He looks at _Scorpio_ \- of course, he never saw it before - and shrugs.

"It'll do," he says, "it'll take us to Terminal."

Your eyes never leave his face; you are terrified that if you stop looking at him he might vanish. But you hear a frightened, incredulous voice nearby. "Why Terminal?" And you know. You hear your own voice say, "To find the _Liberator_." You look into his eyes, and he smiles. Sometimes when you'd been in deep space a long time, you'd land on some planet just to see a sun and feel its warmth on your face. That's what it's like, that smile.

As _Scorpio_ leaves orbit, you glance down at the planet below. "Where's that?"

"Gauda Prime", he says. The name means nothing to you. How could it? You were never there. The future is rolling up behind you like a carpet; you will have a lot of forgetting to do.

******

You didn't want to come here. This place holds too many memories. You shiver at the thought of setting foot on it again. Hauling rubble away from that concrete tomb, hearing the silent voice that called, fainter and fainter, as you tried to reach it. Seeing that explosion on the screen, the white ship of your memories scattered across the darkness.

But you know it will be all right, this time. Don't be afraid of the pain. It has been with you a long time, but now you can walk through it and leave it behind in the future. Because he is here, the chaos of concrete will resolve itself; the voiceless cries will stop. The dark-haired woman will walk out and smile, startled and happy to see him.

And in the sky, maybe a pinpoint of light will appear, as the most beautiful ship in the galaxy takes shape again. Takes you in again. Takes you away from this place, which you will never again think of with grief, since you have never set foot on it.


End file.
